It is known to enterally or intravenously feed liquid nutrition to patients who are not able to eat by themselves. Such liquid meals are normally provided in hangable containers such as bottles or plastic bags and are fed from the containers through a tube to the patient. A number of different liquid nutritional feeds are available for varying the nutritional intake of the patient. Nevertheless, there is a need to tailor the liquid meals to the patient's individual needs. This is known to be done by adding beneficial agents such as for example nutrients, probiotics and medicaments to the liquid nutritional feed. The adding of such beneficial agents should, for some applications, preferably take place just before the feeding starts as a premature mixing of the liquid nutritional feed and the beneficial agent may considerably decrease the quality and shelf-life of the liquid nutritional feed.
The liquid meals provided in hangable containers such as bottles or plastic bags are generally aseptically processed or terminally retorted before use. This increases the shelf life of the liquid meal. For providing an aseptic feed to the patient, the container is connected directly via a feeding tube or line to the patient. Any opening of the system for adding a beneficial agent increases the risk for bacterial growth or contamination.
A closed-line system for the modifying and feeding of patients is therefore desirable.
The prior art discloses closed-line systems wherein a liquid nutritional feeding composition is passed through a chamber comprising a beneficial agent before entering the patient feeding line. The beneficial agent is mixed or dissolved in the liquid nutritional feeding composition when it passes through the chamber.
In order to homogenise the feed to the patient in this type of feeding system and thus prevent an over concentration of the beneficial agent, it is necessary to control the release of the beneficial agent. Consequently, a beneficial agent in controlled release form is used, i.e. an agent the solubility of which is delayed or retarded. For example, supplying of the liquid nutritional feed relates the beneficial agent over a period of 2 to 24 hours. Furthermore, although the controlled release form allows the beneficial agent to be released over a period, in-homogeneity may be experienced in the start-up phase due to the protective coating on the beneficial agents.